


apotropaic

by neville



Series: thorbruce shorts [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Thor Also Needs A Hug, cleaning up wounds, they doing they best, they're both sad but i mean they have each other, this fic is basically just them trying to comfort each other sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-27 12:38:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19013065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neville/pseuds/neville
Summary: “Your eyes are different colours.”In the immediate wake of the snap, Bruce and Thor spend some time together.





	apotropaic

**Author's Note:**

> apotropaic (apətrəˈpeɪɪk)  
> supposedly having the power to avert evil influences or bad luck.
> 
> technically, "apotropaic" is an adjective, and bruce and thor are Not Really Using The Term correctly, but they're doing their best

“Your eyes are different colours,” Bruce notes, running a thumb across Thor’s eyebrow, carefully. He soaks the cloth again and touches it to the gash across Thor’s face; it comes away not just bloody but black, and he stares at the congealed mass for so long that Thor takes his wrist. 

“I’m alright,” he says. “Carry on.” 

Bruce swallows, and nods, rinsing the dark stains away under the current of the tap. He knows that this isn’t his job, that he doesn’t  _ have _ to do this: but there is nothing else to do, and the war sirens of Wakanda have only finished calling out for the dead, and there’s a twitching in his hands, a compulsive need to busy them. So he is wiping the crusted blood from a God’s face in the middle of a royal kitchen, and cursing himself for not having been able to do better. Thor is still wearing all of his armour and there’s a storm behind his eyes that says he could start and end a thousand wars. 

“I was given another eye by the rabbit,” says Thor. Bruce is rummaging through one of the drawers when he says this, and hums out an affirmative; he’s listening. Wherever he was in the house, or in the world, if he heard the rumbling bass of Thor, he would listen. 

He finds what he’s looking for, shuts the drawer, and Thor asks “what colour is that eye, Bruce?” 

Bruce doesn’t know, actually: he’s only seen Thor in flashes, thunderstruck across the battlefield. He wasn’t looking at his eyes, just looking at  _ him _ , breathing in that high of knowing that Thor was okay, that he was alive and wasn’t dead out there in space, lost in the wreckage of some ship they might never see again; even when Thor had touched down and Bruce had thrown his arms around him in the quiet of the chaos, he hadn’t been looking, just  _ feeling _ . Even here, soaking Thor’s wounds, Bruce is just focused on the sound of his breathing. 

He looks Thor straight in the eye; it’s shining in the fluorescent lights of the kitchen, and the only sign that it isn’t organic is the strange reflection on the whites. Bruce can see a sketch of his own face looking back. 

“It’s yellow,” he says. “Not yellow. Uh, amber. Like the kind that preserves insects.” Bruce smiles sheepishly. “Do you wanna see it? There’s a mirror in here.”

“No,” says Thor. “That’s alright.” 

Bruce doesn’t know what to say to him. He doesn’t know what to say to anybody, really, not after what’s happened; instead, he offers Thor one of the biscuits he had found in the cupboard, but Thor declines, so he eats it instead. There is an abyss between them that Bruce has never known before. It hurts almost as much as the pain of what happened. 

So Bruce starts talking. “Have you ever heard of an apotropaic?” Thor looks up at him, as if surprised by the fact that Bruce is just going to talk his way out of this; but engages, and shakes his head. “Apotropaic magic is meant to deflect and ward off evil - for Christians, say, crucifixes are apotropaic items. And, um, when I was a teenager, my mom gave me this cicada trapped in amber. Pretty much all of my life until then was crap, but she gave that to me the year I left for MIT, and it felt like all the bad things that always seemed to happen to me stopped. Nothing got  _ better _ , I guess, it was just that all the shit that had happened wasn’t happening anymore. So I always thought that that amber was my apotropaic. When I lost it, the whole Hulk thing happened, and it felt like an omen, and…” He trails off; he’s run out of words, his thoughts turning over and over in ways that he can’t keep up with anymore. He swallows. 

“And you think I might be an apotropaic?” Thor asks with a low chuckle. “After all that’s happened?” 

“No,” says Bruce. “Your eye, it just - reminded me.” He pauses. Eats another biscuit. “It’s not your fault, Thor. You know that, right?” 

Thor doesn’t say anything. Bruce sighs, and takes his seat again; but Thor’s face is clean now. All that’s left is the scarring around his eye that Bruce doesn’t know if he’s going to adjust to. He forgets, a little, that there are consequences to these things now, that the enemies have so much power that they can leave marks on Gods. 

After a long while, Thor speaks again. “This apotropaic - it wards off evil?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And you believe in it?”

Bruce half-shrugs, a little nervous to commit his scientific approval to what is only superstition; but in a world where aliens and Gods and Vision exist, he supposes that superstition is gradually becoming science, and so it doesn’t matter at all. He nods. “It sure seemed to work last time.”

“And you believe in me?” 

Bruce almost scoffs. How could he not, after all this? “Of course I do, Thor.” 

“Then I shall be your apotropaic, if you want,” says Thor; he seems to know instinctively that what he’s saying is ridiculous, but Bruce finds himself flushing anyway. “If you will stay with me. I think we’ve seen enough evil for more lifetimes than ours.” 

Bruce nods, and, without really thinking about it, leans forwards so their foreheads bump together. Thor is radiating warmth;  _ the heat of a star _ , Bruce thinks. 

“Insects trapped in amber,” Thor says thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen that before. Is it common, here?” 

“Sort of; they’re really important in the scientific community, because some of the specimens have been preserved in there for millions of years, and it’s one of our only ways to look back that far.” Bruce’s gaze flicks up to meet Thor’s. “You can see some of them at the Natural History Museum. Have you been? You’d like it.”

“No,” Thor says. “I haven’t. Stark talked about taking Steve and I there before.” 

Their breathing trips for a moment. 

“We can go there,” says Bruce. “When it’s over. I’ll go where you’re going. I’ll stay with you. I don’t - I don’t feel like I can do anything here anymore.” 

“You know that’s not true,” Thor says, leaning back to touch a hand to the side of Bruce’s face then combing it through his hair. “But we can see the Natural History Museum, and then you can see space, and we’ll go somewhere.” 

Bruce knows that this is unrealistic, that by the time all of this blows over they probably won’t be speaking, or he’ll hear a crash of thunder and Thor will be gone and he’ll have to spend another few years watching the glow of test tubes and wondering where he went wrong. That more of them might die in the hunt for Thanos; that more of them might die in other fights, in other universes, other galaxies. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is safe.

But for right now, he places his hands over Thor’s, and imagines them in Central Park West, happy.


End file.
